Litteraria Pragensia Studies in Literature&Culture 57/29/2019

Exiles, Émigrés & Expatriates in Romantic Era Paris & London

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Of the émigrés returning to France after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons, Talleyrand, the Prince of Diplomats, notoriously quipped: "Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié" (They have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing). Characteristic and accurate as it may have been, that (in)famous contemporary response falls far short of the complex truths of displacement, of which emigration, exile and expatriation are crucially emblematic components. Crucial but highly differentiated: whereas the émigré has tended to be viewed as a coward or a traitor to his or her nation, bitterly vilified as such, at least in the French Republican historiography, the exile has frequently been invested with a heroic status, and construed as outshining other foreigners in view of the moral and symbolic superiority ascribed to him or her, rightly or wrongly. As for expatriates, they have tended to occupy a grey zone, a no man's land of definitions, as befits their condition of residence, provisional or permanent, in a country that is not their own. Originating in papers read at an international symposium held in Paris in 2018 on the topic "Exiles, Émigrés and Expatriates in Romantic-Era Paris and London" this special issue has as one of its primary objectives to clarify the semantics of such a triad. The fact that two of the terms enter the English language in this era, during the French revolutionary emigration and its aftermath, suggests at once the importance of this historical experience in shaping our modern understanding of these concepts and the vocabulary with which we articulate them.